Holt, Thelma

Practitioner

Thelma Holt was born in Lancashire in 1932 and trained at RADA. She began her career as an actress before teaming up with director Charles Marowitz to found the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, London. The Open Space was a pioneering fringe venue that produced and hosted a huge array of work between 1968 and its closing in 1979, including Mike Leigh, the Pip Simmons Company, Barry Reckord, Ken Campbell and The People Show. Holt left the Open Space to run The Roundhouse Theatre in Camden, another, larger fringe venue that hosted rock bands and rock musicals as well as work by Living Theatre, Lindsay Kemp and Le Théâtre du Soleil. She left the Roundhouse in 1983 and became a major producer for the National Theatre and then the RSC. She has been an important figure in introducing international theatre to Britain (including Yukio Ninagawa) and in encouraging risk taking and artistic bravery among companies of all sizes and shapes. Kate Dorney

Holt_Assetthumb — An Interview with Thelma Holt

Thelma Holt talks about her early career as an actress in the immediate post-war period, changes in the 1950s and 1960s effected by the Royal Court, and her role in developing the fringe theatre scene.

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Pip Simmons set up his own experimental company in 1968. It made intense, physical and musical work through collective devising. The group split up in 1973, and Simmons increasingly worked abroad.

Simmons_Thumb — Simmons, Pip

Pip Simmons set up his own experimental company in 1968. It made intense, physical and musical work through collective devising. The group split up in 1973, and Simmons increasingly worked abroad.